The Pentagon Fires Stars and Stripes' Top Editor and Publisher
The Pentagon fired Stars and Stripes editor-in-chief Erik Slavin and Middle East reporter Lara Korte on August 21, 2026, issuing notices of separation that also reached the newspaper's longtime publisher, Max Lederer. Stars and Stripes confirmed the terminations in its own reporting the same day.
Slavin told The Associated Press that he received a notice citing insubordination. He attributes the firing to remarks he made in a CBS interview, in which he stated that hypothetical censorship of news for service members would constitute a red line. He also linked the terminations to the leadership group's decision to speak publicly about defending the newspaper's editorial independence. Al Jazeera reported Slavin's account on August 21.
Slavin stands by the principle that Stars and Stripes must remain editorially independent, as required by law and by the Defense Department's own policies. Lederer, who had previously announced his retirement effective at the end of September, received a separation notice as well. His retirement announcement had followed the Defense Department's dismissal in April of the newspaper's ombudsman (an independent advocate for ethics and accountability), Jacqueline Smith. Stars and Stripes reported Lederer's retirement on August 18.
In announcing his resignation, Lederer wrote in a memo that his "philosophy of leadership" differed in fundamental ways from the direction of the leadership.
The terminations cap a months-long restructuring of the newspaper's oversight. In January, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced the department would be "returning Stars & Stripes to its original mission" and refocusing its content away from "woke distractions." In April, the Pentagon fired ombudsman Jacqueline Smith. Navy Captain William Urban, a Pentagon spokesperson, was subsequently appointed deputy publisher of Stars and Stripes, reportedly without publisher Max Lederer's advance knowledge.
The newspaper's reporting on mental health crises among service members became a flashpoint. Stars and Stripes covered cases on the USS Abraham Lincoln in which sailors expressed suicidal thoughts or attempted to jump overboard. The Trump administration dismissed those reports as overblown and "dishonest."
Stars and Stripes was founded in the 19th century and gained prominence during World War II, when it became the official news outlet for soldiers deployed abroad. Its statutory mandate for editorial independence is designed to insulate reporting on the military from military command pressure — a structural firewall that the current terminations place under strain.
Under Trump's second term, the Pentagon has restricted journalists' access to areas including its press office. Trump has also launched lawsuits against The Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press, the BBC, and The New York Times over coverage disagreements.
The broader context here is a rapid consolidation of editorial oversight under the Defense Department's communications apparatus. The sequence runs from January's mission-reframing announcement through the ombudsman's firing, the installation of a Pentagon spokesperson as deputy publisher without the publisher's knowledge, and now the separation of the editor-in-chief, publisher, and a beat reporter. The legal framework requiring Stars and Stripes' editorial independence remains in place; what has shifted is the enforcement and personnel layer beneath that framework. Whether Congress or the courts treat the removal of the officials responsible for asserting that independence as a violation of the statute, or as a permissible personnel action within the executive branch's authority, will determine whether the firewall holds in practice or exists only on paper.
